Disclosure: My daughter and I were comped 1 night in a free suite at the Sheraton New York Times Square hotel. Everything in this review is mine and was not reviewed or approved by Sheraton, Starwood or anyone at the hotel
When my daughter and I started planning a trip to New York City (SEE: A 10 year old’s Top 10 things to do in New York City), neither of us had ever been to NYC before. So we knew we’d probably stay in Manhattan and do all the “touristy” things that you just GOTTA do. So having a hotel in midtown Manhattan (convenient to many different subway stops) was a huge bonus. We ended up staying at the Sheraton New York Times Square
Sheraton New York Times Square history
The Sheraton New York Times Square was built as one of the first grand scale hotels in midtown Manhattan, having originally opened as the Loews Americana in 1962 to support the 1964 World’s Fair. Having stayed at a fair number of “older” hotels in city centers, I’ll say that while they usually have location going for them, one of the challenges is that their amenities are not up to modern standards. Thankfully the Sheraton New York Times Square went through a complete renovation of all 1781 guest rooms in 2013. That means the heating is all modern (so you can control the temperature from your room) and there are outlets everywhere (no more unplugging the clocks and lamps to find room to charge all your devices)
Sheraton New York Times Square amenities and Sheraton Club Lounge
The Sheraton New York Times Square has a full fitness center with plenty of exercise machines as well as a room with full weight machines
Since I have the SPG Business credit card I was also eligible to have access to the Sheraton Club, which is located on the 44th floor.
We got to the Sheraton New York Times Square about 10:30 a.m. and the breakfast was already finished. The attendants did bring out a few muffins and croissants for us, and there were complimentary soft drinks, coffee and other beverages. We just chilled for a few minutes enjoying the views of Times Square
We stopped back into the Sheraton Club from 5:30-7:30 pm for the “Evening hors d’oeuvres”, which was pretty weak (just chips and crackers and veggies).
The Sheraton Club continental breakfast the next morning was also fairly weak – only cold items, no pancakes / waffles or eggs / meat
Rooms at the Sheraton Times Square New York
There are 1781 guest rooms on 50 floors at the Sheraton New York Times Square, and they are about halfway divided between single bed and double bed rooms. They are also marketing a family friendly suite option (25% off connecting rooms and kids eat free), which ends up being 2 (or 3) rooms connected before, which is what we had up on the 37th floor
My room had a king bed with a sofa and a desk
while the connecting room was more of the “suite” portion, which included a Murphy bed (not pictured off to the left of the picture below)
If you’ve never seen or heard of a Murphy Bed, well, my daughter hadn’t heard of one either. Here’s what happened when I asked her what those handles were doing up on the wall
It was pretty slick
Surprise at the Sheraton New York Times Square
So we were pretty tired after a whole day touring Manhattan. We came back to our room and started watching a movie but quickly fell asleep, so I tucked my daughter into bed about 8pm. I was in the other room working on a few posts and watching ESPN when I vaguely hear a knock at the door from room service. I didn’t think they were knocking on my door and I knew I hadn’t ordered anything, so I just ignored them.
Then my daughter comes out through the connecting doors and says that they were knocking on HER door, so I peeked my head out into the hallway and the room service guy was still there. I told him I hadn’t ordered anything and he said that it was complimentary.
I had told them that we were celebrating my daughter’s birthday, so the hotel sent up
Now I do want to be careful about what a regular reader might expect when staying at the Sheraton New York Times Square. So on the one hand, I can’t be sure that they didn’t send this up solely to impress me and to get a positive review. On the other hand, I think it’s reasonable that if you were staying here and made a mention of a special occasion, that you might get something like this from the hotel as a gesture (especially if you have any sort of status with Starwood). In any case, it really made my daughter’s day to have that sent up. The cake was good but the edible roses on top were not so great 🙂
The Sheraton Times Square New York was a great hotel, with modern conveniences and a great location in midtown Manhattan (Between 52nd and 53rd Streets on 7th Avenue). It’s a Category 5 SPG hotel, which means it’s 12,000 points / night (or 6,000 points + $110), and of course if you’re staying 5 nights, your 5th night is free (so 48,000 points total).
Ever stayed at the Sheraton Times Square New York? What did you think?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I stayed there last year while attending a conference at Lincoln Center. The lounge was very crowded in the evening. In the morning, I had to be at the conference very early. Breakfast wasn’t open yet, but one staffer made me a “bag breakfast” to eat on the run.
I thought the service was excellent. My room was clean. It was close to everything.
Since you don’t disclose HOW you got the “free” night in a suite, we’re left to assume you asked for it as a blogger (?). if that’s the case, it would seem any special treatment you and your daughter received was due to that. Kudos for disclosing the comp and possible conflict of interests.
Glad you had a nice free visit…but not very relevant for non-VIP (or whatever you were listed as) paying guests.
I do believe it’s important to disclose when companies are giving you free stuff, and I thought I was clear on that. And I agree that I fully believe that the reason we got the special birthday cake was because we were “VIP guests”.
The real question to me is whether “regular” guests could ever get something like that. I have certainly had experiences where I was just a “regular” guest, staying either on points or on a regular paid stay and alerted the hotel that we were there on a special occasion, and had the hotel do something special for me. So I know that it happens, especially if you have any kind of status with that hotel chain.
Oddly enough this is something I have experience with! I stayed at this hotel 2 years ago with my two small children, on points. We had the minor status bump from the SPG card, but no other status. The front desk lady was *very* nice and did not think our single room would be large enough for us, so she upgraded us to a very similar “suite” to what @pointswithacrew got here. I do not think this probably happens to most people staying at this hotel, we did seem to develop a quick rapport at check-in, but it is not impossible for a non-blogger to get this upgrade. I gave her a small tip as a token of our appreciation after the fact, but after having been in the room I wish I would have done something more, as the upgrade completely changed our experience.
Michael – thanks for sharing! Glad to hear your story!